Spontaneous Musings

Back home in NYC. Enjoyed my holiday, am happy to be home.

Saw a couple of flicks over the holiday - we rented since the pickings were pretty slim at the theaters. Only movie out that I felt any interest in I'd already seen - Casino Royale. Almost went to see it a second time with Momster, because...Daniel Craig makes a yummy James Bond. His next flick is His Dark Materials: The Compass Rose due out sometime in 2007 or 2008 - he's playing the protagonist's father, while Nicole Kidman plays the mother. This series I'm looking forward to, preferred it to CS Lewis's Narnia Chronicles for its wit (Lewis tends to take himself a tad too seriously, although he did loosen up a bit later), its ambiguity, and its strong-willed female protagonist - plus the imaginative touches. Craig and Kidman are perfect casting for the anti-hero roles of the parents - who veer from heroic to villainous and back again. We avoided Charlotte's Web - honestly the 1973 cartoon was enough. This version I can't stand to watch the previews. Spider. Ack. Definitely not a movie for the arachnaphobe in your family. There's just something creepy about watching a brown recluse spider speaking in Julia Roberts voice - yep, they've managed to make the brown barn spider look like a brown recluse.

( movie reviews of Scoop, Cars, and The Proposition - vague spoilers )

Finished Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus's Childhood Pal
which I highly recommend to anyone who likes dry wit and theological books. It's funny.
It's touching. It's historical. And there's a nifty five-six page bit at the back detailing the research the author conducted to write it and the points where the story merges with the real one and veers away from it. It sticks pretty closely to the actual one, more so than I'd thought. I also learned a few things I'd forgotten or didn't know - 1)Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, no where in the bible is it listed that she was. Nor was she saved from stoning. What is stated is Jesus save her from evil spirits and she washed his feet while he was on the cross with ointment and wiped the ointment with her hair. 2)In biblical times women traveling alone away from their families, divorced, or without a husband - were often referred to as harlots. (Thank God I was born in the 1960s after Elisabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B Anthony, Queen Elizabeth I, and Betty Friedman amongst others.)3) Apparently no one mentions in detail Jesus' childhood, when Joseph died exactly, and what happened in the period between his birth and when he turned 30. 4)It was common for women and men to get married and have kids at the age of 13/14 in those days, since you were lucky to make it to 30 let alone 40. (So Jesus died old not young?) Anyhow, interesting. Also a fitting book to finish on Xmas Eve - which by the by is not really Jesus birthday - hence the reason the Gullah in South Carolina don't practice Christmas. His birth was actually in March/April - yep, Jesus was a Pices not a Capricorn. It was moved by the Northern Europeans to coincide with Yuletide - most of the Xmas practices are derived from ancient pagan rituals to celebrate the beginning of the Winter Solistice.

Just started a really good book - or at least I'm enjoying it. Swapped it from my folks. They got Lamb and I got it. Snowstorms in a Hot Climate by Sarah Dunant. Here's what the back cover says about it:

Marla's best friend, Elly, left England two years ago on a soul-searching trip through South America. Except for a few postcards, Marla has not heard from her since. Then Marla receives a strange letter from Elly begging her to fly to New York. [Marla lives in London, England - they are both English]. But the person Marla meets at the airport is a very different woman from the strong, carefree friend she remembers. Elly, now well-dressed and thin, has acquired a park-view apartment, a house in Westchester, and a charismatic, manipulative, cocaine-smuggling boyfriend named Lenny. As Marla tries to free her friend from the dual addictions of love and cocaine, she unravels a story of seduction and power in Columbia and of desire and betrayal in California. Caught in a web of deceptions, the threat of violence mounting around them, Marla decides to take on Lenny and his empire. But Lenny - like the drug he peddles - has no intention of letting Elly go.

Only 60 some pages in, but pretty certain will finish it quickly - it moves fast, is gripping, and speaks to me. First book I've read in months that fits that description.